An E34 M5 Lottery Ticket

[Melon]

Dang man, glad you're bringing this beauty back to life.

[laidback93]

You're doing the Lord's work.

I'd love to have an e34 M5, but I'm scared of having to do all this work that you're doing.

I'll live vicariously through you!

[968Reckless]

Lots of good happening here.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[2mAn]

S38 at redline is heaven

[MX339]

Trying to get an update together, but Flickr is giving me troubles! She's running for real now, though.

[roguetoaster]

Quite the tease, but great thread so far!

[MX339]

Thanks for the kind words, everyone!

You're doing the Lord's work.

I'd love to have an e34 M5, but I'm scared of having to do all this work that you're doing.

I'll live vicariously through you!

Hah, well I honestly don't think a smartly purchased M5 would be any more work than any other E34 or most E30's. From everything I hear, the S38 is a fairly reliable hunk of metal, just with the added complexities of ITB maintenance which I'll have to get to eventually.

I got access to my Flickr account back, so let's see if we can catch up with the progress and setbacks.

We last left off with engine reassembly. There sure are a lot of fasteners on an S38!
IMG_0229 by Alex Barroso, on Flickr

A bunch of time was spent tidying up parts before the were put back on the car. It was a bit of a conundrum as I always wanted to get things very clean, but I had already sunk so much time into the project that I really just needed to get it running again. I know the throttle bodies will come back off again for a rebuild, which could have been done then, but as I said it really needed to go back together. Choose your battles I suppose.
IMG_0265 by Alex Barroso, on Flickr

Engine finally going back in with the help of my old man. I had quite a few of the accessories already back on the engine, such as the intake resonance system vacuum components. Once again, it was time consuming getting everything tidied up. Especially considering how long it had been since I took it apart.
IMG_0433 by Alex Barroso, on Flickr

The crank pulley bolt had to be torqued back down which is a huge pain. I was fortunate to have a friend who's a BMW master tech and has been with BMW since these cars were new! The dealership just so happened to have the crank pulley holding tool laying around in the tool room, and seeing as M30/S38 crank pulley tools aren't in high demand in BMW service departments, I borrowed it. I bought a new M20x1.5 bolt, and torqued to BMW's torque spec of 150Nm, back off a half turn, 60Nm, 60°, 60°, and a final 30°. The angle gauge actually snapped at the very end of the final 30°!
IMG_0436 by Alex Barroso, on Flickr

Engine in the car with a torqued crank bolt! Still more assembly to go.
IMG_0437 by Alex Barroso, on Flickr

Cleaned up transmission and cross member went back in separately.
IMG_0449 by Alex Barroso, on Flickr

On the recommendation of a bunch of threads on the M5 Board, I found a source for new Bosch Y6DC plugs which are the factory S38b36 plugs.
IMG_0484 by Alex Barroso, on Flickr

While I was slowly getting everything hooked back up I was able to buy a new M5 front bumper cover for a reasonable amount at a dealership in south Georgia. I was keeping an eye out for a Schwartz/Silver front bumper, but it just wasn't happening and I wanted to get my hands on one while I still could. Once again, the E30 was pulling truck duty!
IMG_0536 by Alex Barroso, on Flickr

There were lots of little things to be done that took up a lot of time. A lot of plastic was in bad shape due to being exposed to ozone and heat with the car sitting outside for so many years. There were a few male side Bosch EV3 connectors that had just disintegrated on the intake side of the engine.
IMG_0565 by Alex Barroso, on Flickr

I managed to find a source for EV3 connector kits and started getting the connectors fixed. Couldn't re-use the pins as the newer EV3 connector pins use two tabs to hold themselves into the housing instead of the old ones which used a big single tab. New pins crimped on:
IMG_0567 by Alex Barroso, on Flickr

New connector all done!
IMG_0559 by Alex Barroso, on Flickr

It wasn't all about the engine though. Lots of other stuff to be done. I had to install a new clutch master, clutch slave, and brake master due to contamination in the brake system. I had actually pulled apart the old clutch master in order to rebuild it, but the rebuild kit was missing some kind of retaining ring to where the piston would get pushed out as soon as the system was pressurized.... It made a huge mess on the floorboard and I ended up just having to buy a new master. Also installed new soft lines all around and rebuilt all four calipers.
IMG_0571 by Alex Barroso, on Flickr

I flushed the system with the pressure bleeder and this is what came out the other side. Yikes. Got some fresh fluid pumping through by the end though.
IMG_0572 by Alex Barroso, on Flickr

I was also working on installing the power steering system. As you might remember, the car had no power steering pump installed when I got it. The SLS system had already been deleted, so I figured it'd be the perfect time to get a single vane system installed. My buddy Jb325is had already done the conversion on his Calypso car so I was able to use his thread as reference. I already had the M30 bracket, pump, and reservoir installed at this point. Just needed an extension for the low pressure line from the pump to the reservoir.
IMG_0574 by Alex Barroso, on Flickr

I don't know that I had ever explained the exhaust situation for this car either. I bought this car from the same owner as Jb325is's Calypso car, and the reason he had bought this car was to use the exhaust off of it for the Calypso car which meant my car had no exhaust. It just so happened that the exhaust that came off was a Billy Boat with a stock front section and I really liked the way it sounded on Jb's car. So I ordered a BB rear system directly from them and a reproduction cat section from Bimmerworld. I've actually had all of that for probably a year now.
IMG_0575 by Alex Barroso, on Flickr

Tips look good! I'm going to have to continue to adjust the fitment though.
IMG_0576 by Alex Barroso, on Flickr

I also had to piece the plenum back together. The machine had fully disassembled and blasted it, so I painted it with some black crinkle paint (didn't come out great) and started putting it back together. The had even taken the resonance flap out so it took me awhile to get that back together properly.
IMG_0587 by Alex Barroso, on Flickr

At this point, I decided to take a peek in the gas tank just to make sure nothing was amiss in there as I was getting close to being able to crank the engine. I'm sure glad I checked...
IMG_0607 by Alex Barroso, on Flickr
IMG_0606 by Alex Barroso, on Flickr

Time for another project! Old tank had to come out.
IMG_0597 by Alex Barroso, on Flickr

I had actually sourced another tank from a guy parting out some E34's up in north Georgia, so I drove up there and then came back home and cleaned it up. Even came with a good fuel pump as everything inside of my tank was wrecked.
IMG_0596 by Alex Barroso, on Flickr

It was quite dirty but cleaned up nicely.
IMG_0602 by Alex Barroso, on Flickr

It always seemed like there was something else needed to make sure the car was going to be drive-able. I didn't want to start the engine and not be able to drive the car as I wanted to start putting load on the engine not long after its first start. The throttle pedal linkage bushings were a good example of some of those little things. The pedal was just flopping around before those were changed out.
IMG_0616 by Alex Barroso, on Flickr

Everything was finally buttoned up and it was time for the moment of truth. Would she start and run well?
IMG_0604 by Alex Barroso, on Flickr

After plenty of cranking with the fuel pump relay pulled in order to build oil pressure, it was time to pop it back in and give it fuel. And to much to my surprise after a few cranks..... She fired right up.
IMG_0609 by Alex Barroso, on Flickr

The success was short lived though as problems quickly added up and delayed the first drive. Hopefully I'll manage to get that update posted in a much more timely manner than I have been.

[rzerob]

It has come a long way. Keep up the good job.

[D.Martijn]

Awesome update! Been a while for sure but totally worth it! Great job on the engine rebuild

[jeenyus]

The beard probably help with the great amount of success you achieved! great work! I'm surprised how much space that engine takes up in that engine bay.

[MX339]

The beard probably help with the great amount of success you achieved! great work! I'm surprised how much space that engine takes up in that engine bay.

Hah, thanks! S38's are definitely big ole' engines. The b36 takes up even more room than earlier ones on account of the big external cooling passages on the front of the engine.

So I now had a running M5, but there were plenty of other problems. The first and most pressing issue was that I wanted to drive it in order to start putting load on the engine, but the coolant temp gauge on the M5 cluster wasn't responding. I checked a few things and looked all over the internet, but nothing was getting it fixed without taking it out. After some research, the most likely culprit seemed to be capacitors on the cluster's board. So I popped open the cluster, checked the capacitor types and went down to the local Microcenter which had some in stock. Here's one of the new capacitors after being soldered on:
IMG_0611 by Alex Barroso, on Flickr

Unfortunately, that wasn't the fix. The temp gauge was still dead. In the meantime, I really wanted to get the car on the road so I asked another local E34 nerd if he had any spare standard clusters just to get me going. Luckily he was happy to lend me one and I was able to get it out for a drive.

Unluckily, there were more problems. The car seemed to idle well, maybe a little rich, but on the road it ran terribly. Didn't seem to be misfiring or missing any cylinders, but it had no throttle response or power at all. It also seemed like it was adding fuel when coasting, so there was a distinct lack of engine braking. Bad stuff all around really. First thing the diagnosing caught was a dead coil. Seemed like a likely culprit as really weak spark could cause some of those running issues, so a new coil was on its way.
IMG_0615 by Alex Barroso, on Flickr

Worked on a few other misc. projects in the mean time. I picked up some Eastwood Plastic Resurfacer after seeing it used in another build thread on R3V. The plastic cowl cover looked terrible and washed out, so I decided to test out the plastic restorer on that. Before:
IMG_0620 by Alex Barroso, on Flickr

After:
IMG_0624 by Alex Barroso, on Flickr

Not perfect, as the plastic had become pitted after all those years exposed to the sun, but it was a big improvement.

I'm not sure what the timeline was like at this point, but there was lots of stuff going on simultaneously. The windshield the car came with was trashed. Someone must have left the wiper arms up without wiper inserts installed and they eventually slammed down on the windshield. I ordered a new windshield from a local glass guy, but I had a dilemma as to what to do for the windshield trim. New trim is $200+ per side, and I just couldn't justify that with all the other expenses involved with the car. That, and the windshield is going to have to come out again when the car gets painted. I got lucky and found a very nice used set of trim from Schmiedmann for about $100 shipped if I remember correctly.
Windshield came out and the cowl looked pretty good except for a few little spots of surface rust. Treated those and painted the bare metal with some self etching primer.
IMG_0628 by Alex Barroso, on Flickr

At this point, I had done a lot more research and diagnosis. I found a few more things such as a ripped intake boot, but I taped that up and not much improved. Ordered a new one and kept diagnosing. After more research it seemed possible that the MAF could be at fault. I took the MAF back off, took a closer look, and realized the hot wire was actually broken. Welp, that could be it. Only issue that a new MAF was listed at $2500+ and it doesn't look like it's even available anymore. Almost $3000 for a MAF just wasn't possible for me to do. After looking around on the forums, it seemed that there was a re-builder for M5 MAF's, but I had a hard time getting in touch with him. After a long wait for a response, I was able to send the MAF out and it came back after about a week turn-around time. Nice and shiny! Kevin at Injection Labs did a great job with the MAF.
IMG_0676 by Alex Barroso, on Flickr

I think that's it for tonight. There were a bunch of other things I had going on with the car in the time it was down waiting for the MAF, so we'll get to those next. At this point we're up to June of this year, so we're getting caught up slowly, but surely. Stay tuned for the next one!

[marshallnoise]

In cause black e34.